


And the Sky Full of Stars

by Ilweran



Series: Points of Divergence [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Character Death In Dream, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Mass Effect 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-06 00:05:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12805293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilweran/pseuds/Ilweran
Summary: Stars are falling, so many of them that it will be a wonder if any are left in the skies of Rannoch.Tali dreams.





	And the Sky Full of Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a Babylon 5 episode with the same name.

Stars are falling, so many of them that it will be a wonder if any are left in the skies of Rannoch.

She does not know why that was her first thought. Stars do not fall despite the claims of a human superstition that she heard from... somewhere. Perhaps Kaidan, or Doctor Chakwas. That is not important now.

What is important is that she cannot look away. She wants to, wants more than anything - there is a voice in her head screaming for her to spare herself and to close her eyes, but if she did, she would see every one of those stars branded on the insides of her eyelids. She will see them for the rest of her life.

That will not be a problem for long. She can't say how she knows that. A great many things are unclear here... wherever "here" is.

A flash of light ripples across her visor. Her hand twitches to shield her face, but she stills the movement. She has to look. It is the least she owes to - to -

Her mouth is forming words outside her control, but she cannot hear them. Her throat hurts terribly. She tries to cough, but the body she's trapped in remains still, its neck craned up to a painful angle. Like a wildfire across the sky, she thinks in a distant corner of her mind that is not overcome with a horrible screech that makes her teeth ache. Has she been indoctrinated? Did the Reaper survive?

A hand - once trusted beyond measure - on her arm, only for her to shake it off. Wind in her ears, on the bare skin of her face. Sunrise in her eyes, piercing-bright.

* * *

Tali does not bolt up on her bed, gasping for breath. Her dreams have always been quiet, a habit born of communal living. She wakes up slowly to the first rays of Tikkun peeking behind the curtains of her bedroom window, and she's shivering as if it's not the height of summer. Her throat itches. She must've slept with her mouth open.

Even though she gathers the thin sheets more tightly around her, it takes a long time for the shivers to ease up. She tries to distract herself by thinking about the upcoming negotiations with the Geth on the subject of a new Quarian settlement, but the dream lingers. Nightmares often do, but this felt more like a distant memory.

She can recall the shapes her lips and tongue formed: _Please. Don't._ With the words comes the echo of a heartbreak so profound that she stops trying to remember more.

Just a silly dream. It'll fade in daylight.


End file.
